The life and times of the Chief Dental Editor of Dental Products Report magazine and dentistry's "Technology Evangelist". Follow my thoughts and travels as I practice, write, lecture, tinker, and experiment with technology and technology in dentistry.

Monday, December 9, 2013

For you regular readers of the blog, you know that I'm very passionate about oral cancer screening.

In the United States, 1 person every hour dies of oral or pharyngeal cancer. That's right, one an hour. That is a very scary number.

Also, in the next calendar year, it is estimated that about 35,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer. That is also a scary number.

Because of this, we in the dental field need to be doing all we can to head this disease off at its earliest signs. However, locating areas that need to be followed, biopsied, etc can be difficult even with high magnification surgical telescopes and auxiliary lighting. This is just one of those areas where we need more help in properly seeing potential problem areas.

That's why I've been such an advocate of oral cancer screening devices. These allow the dental professional to more easily identify areas of interest. They are not diagnostic devices and by that I mean they do not tell you whether something is cancerous or not. Instead, they help identify *potential* areas of concern that can be followed up on or biopsied to determine what type of lesion it is.

We have several of these devcies in our office that we use on a regular basis. One of them in the Velscope Vx and that device is the subject of this post.

The Velscope Vx is cordless and uses a custom battery that is contained in the handle of the device. Between exams, the device is placed back on the charger where it rapidly recharges and is ready for the next use.

Well last week, we went to use the device and it was dead, zip, nothing. It seems the battery had simply died and it's something that has to be obtained from the company. I contacted Velscope via email to let them know I was in need of a new battery.

The customer support was nothing short of amazing. Within a half hour I had received a return email. They let me know that I could take the AC plug out of the charging dock and simply plug it into the base of the Velscope itself and continue to use the device with AC power. Amazing! I was actually a bit embarrassed I hadn't thought of that.

Then I was told a new battery would be shipping to me shortly after they had collected all the necessary data.

This is just a great example of customer service and taking good care of the client.

My hat is off to the good people at Velscope. They make a good product and support it very well.